When Honkai Impact 3rd began its public beta.
Penguin Corporation.
It had to be said, it was quite a coincidence; they had also just launched their new mobile game, Battle for the Desert.
And the wealthy and imposing Penguin Corporation naturally invited many famous streamers from various platforms to promote Battle for the Desert on this day.
For a time, the popularity of Battle for the Desert completely overshadowed Honkai Impact 3rd.
Just one hour after the game went live, its download count reached a staggering five hundred thousand!
And this number was still climbing steadily.
The general manager of the game walked out with his hands behind his back, looked at the jubilant expressions of the employees, and asked with feigned seriousness, "How's the situation?"
An employee who was refreshing a webpage turned and showed it to the general manager.
"Because the games launched earlier were all from small companies, although our game has only been online for a short time, it has already rushed into the top ten on the popularity charts."
Upon hearing this, the general manager's face immediately lit up with joy, yet he affectedly suppressed his emotions, the corners of his mouth unable to stop curling upwards as he uttered 'modest' words.
"It's only the top ten, nothing to get excited about. You know, our goal is number one, this year's best domestic game."
"The manager is right. We need to set our sights on the long term."
As the employee spoke, he refreshed the page and found that Battle for the Desert had moved up another spot on the popularity chart.
"Right," the general manager paced for a while, then suddenly remembered something that had caused quite a stir in the industry a few days ago. "What are Honkai Impact 3rd's results right now?"
He paused. "It shouldn't be too low, right? After all, they had quite a bit of momentum on Pilipili before."
"Let me see."
The employee scrolled down the chart and found Honkai Impact 3rd at twenty-first place.
He immediately reported this news to the general manager. "Twenty-first place. That's a good result for a small workshop. In my opinion, that so-called 3D real-time combat mobile game, even if it's real, probably has a ton of bugs and a terrible experience. It's not on the same level as us at all."
The general manager nodded slightly in agreement, but for some reason, he felt a little uneasy. He thought for a moment and then said, "Refresh it again and see. Don't make a mistake."
The employee naturally wouldn't disobey the general manager's wishes and obediently refreshed the webpage.
Indeed!
Honkai Impact 3rd had disappeared from twenty-first place.
"Was it really a mistake?"
The employee scrolled down in front of the general manager, looking for Honkai Impact 3rd's icon.
But even after carefully looking down to the fiftieth position, he didn't find Honkai Impact 3rd.
He couldn't help but swallow, a ridiculous thought forming in his mind.
He scrolled the webpage to the very top.
And started looking down one by one from the beginning.
At thirteenth place, he saw the icon for Honkai Impact 3rd.
"How is that possible?! Thirteenth already, this quickly? Is there a bug in the chart?"
The general manager frowned, his eyes flashing. After pondering for a moment, he gave another order: "Refresh it again."
"Refresh again?"
Almost instinctively, the employee clicked refresh again. Immediately after, he was dumbfounded, his eyes wide:
"Holy crap, it's tenth place!"
And Penguin Corporation's Battle for the Desert was only in ninth place now.
Looking at this trend, it wouldn't be long before Honkai Impact 3rd surpassed it.
"Is this game crazy?!"
"Everyone, download Honkai Impact 3rd immediately!"
The general manager's command instantly spread throughout the entire office.
"Then what about our new game?"
"Who gives a damn about the new game right now!"
...
...
Honkai Impact 3rd's meteoric rise on the popularity charts not only tugged at the heartstrings of everyone at Penguin Corporation but also captivated countless industry insiders.
The company whose game was previously tenth on the chart remained strong. Their manager tried hard to maintain a smile and said to his friend, "Did you see that? It felt like a game just嗖 (swooshed) right past my head."
Friend: "..."
The friend couldn't say much either, and could only accompany the manager to play Honkai Impact 3rd.
As a result, both of them got hooked, spent money on several 648-yuan gacha packs, and exhausted the card pool.
"Shadow Knight Moonbeam! Finally got her."
The manager, completely absorbed, stopped his gacha-spending fingers. "Watch me shred these Honkai Beasts."
"Alright, alright, are you really getting addicted?"
"Don't you think Honkai Impact 3rd is fun?"
His friend looked down at the Shadow Knight Moonbeam and Knight Moonbeam battlesuits he had just pulled, and couldn't help but sigh softly. "It's fun, it's fun. It's just a bit too fun."
Even seasoned veterans like them, who had been deeply involved in the game industry for many years and had experienced countless games, were addicted to Honkai Impact 3rd.
Those players who had long grown tired of countless monotonously-designed trash games.
They would probably find it even harder to resist the charm of Honkai Impact 3rd.
"Damn, this Honkai Impact 3rd is amazing. I'm completely convinced."
After playing Honkai Impact 3rd, the two of them were truly, thoroughly impressed, deeply lamenting that a huge catfish had emerged in the industry.
And their sentiment was not an isolated case. Everyone who had watched themselves being overtaken by Honkai Impact 3rd had similar feelings.
Subsequently.
Other professionals in the gaming industry all had the same thought arise in their minds: Is Honkai Impact 3rd really that fun?
No way, right?
No... way?
From firm belief to uncertainty, the only thing missing was logging into the game to experience it firsthand.
What a dimensionality reduction strike.
It felt like Honkai Impact 3rd was on a completely different dimension from other mobile games on the market!
Anyone who truly understood the industry could easily see that Honkai Impact 3rd was very likely about to steamroll everyone.
The entire industry was in stunned silence.
Many found it unbelievable.
Before this, they had imagined Penguin Corporation would continue to monopolize the top spot, or perhaps another well-known studio might overtake Penguin.
The media had never even paid attention to miHoYo studio.
Now, miHoYo had, with such momentum, effortlessly surged into the top ranks of the popularity charts.
And it was predicted to reach the number one spot in a day or two, creating a siphon effect.
If, by then, the combined popularity of the other top ten games didn't even match the first-place game, it would be truly laughable.
But on what grounds did miHoYo achieve this?
It wasn't that Honkai Impact 3rd wasn't good enough, but rather, how could miHoYo possibly produce such an outstanding game like Honkai Impact 3rd?
Non-professionals might think miHoYo had sufficient technical capabilities and suddenly had a breakthrough, developing Honkai Impact 3rd, which wasn't surprising.
But in their eyes, this was basically impossible.
Could you skip from middle school graduation to university and still outperform the school's professors?
If miHoYo studio truly had such geniuses, would they have struggled for so many years?
The real reason wasn't hard to analyze.
A certain Su Luo, who had taken out a loan to acquire miHoYo, entered their line of sight.
"Bringing in capital and creativity to the team? What kind of targeted poverty alleviation is this?"
Everyone who guessed the truth was astonished. To single-handedly turn the tide, spending time and energy to make the nearly bankrupt miHoYo take flight.
Looking at it this way.
Su Luo was practically miHoYo's Big Daddy!